Green Tea Tour 2010: Huangshan

Huangshan is one of those places that for millennia has drawn Chinese artists. It is also a center for tea culture. The area was instrumental in the development of modern tea making techniques that developed during the Ming Dynasty. It is the last destination in our green tea tour. The tour spends time with Master Wang Fang Sheng. He is one of China’s great producers.

Mr. Wang makes our Huang Shan Mao Feng and Yin Gou Mei. He is also the inventor of display teas. He came up with the idea from having watched his mother string wild flowers together as a boy. We will bring some of them back this year. They taste as good as they look. Even though he is in his seventies, he hikes up to his factory, a climb of a couple of hours, every year to make tea, and doesn’t come down until he is finished.

The mountains are so incredible it is really had to believe even looking at pictures. Here are some. Enjoy.

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I have managed to post this before the beginning of the Oolong Tea Tour. It would be a milestone if it wasn’t for the delay caused by the volcanic eruption in Iceland, that has delayed the start of tour.

The first cup kisses away my thirst,
and my loneliness is quelled by the second.
The third gives insight worthy of ancient scrolls,
and the fourth exiles my troubles.
My body becomes lighter with the fifth,
and the sixth sends word from immortals.
But the seventh —oh the seventh cup— if I drink you,
a wind will hurry my wings toward the sacred island.